On a recent trip to the Dominican Republic, we visited the oldest cathedral of the Americas, on which construction started in the 1504, twelve years after Columbus arrived on its shores. There, in a forgotten corner outside the Catedral Primada de América, we discovered a row of gargoyles in the shape of winged, feathered wolves. They had never been mounted on the unfinished top of the cathedral. They were old and weathering had exposed the coral structures that are embedded in the local limestone from which they were carved. What symbolism do these creatures represent, these curiously feathered Dogs of God - the Domini Canis, in the context of the Conquest of the Americas? They sit howling to the sky, and it seemed to me, that they were lamenting for the past; the perished, native, Taino Culture, - and for the future; the current growing loss of coral reefs in the Caribbean.

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EVELINE KOLIJN

Science and nature inspire my art. My work investigates form and pattern in nature, organisms, and mechanisms. I also investigate the relationship of Man with Nature. I create dialectic between natural structures and man-made constructions. This opposition appears formal in contrasting organic shapes against Euclidean, rigid structures, but underneath is often a commentary on the relationship between human society and the natural environment.

I am very interested in natural history. Recently I have been investigating the work of a Russian scientist from the former turn of the century, Vladimir Vernadsky. He was the first to develop the concept of biosphere; of living matter being inseparably connected within the geological envelope of the earth. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, he realized how mankind embraced the whole biosphere and contributed to the "reconstruction of the biosphere in the interests of freely thinking humanity as a single totality." He called this the "noösphere", or "conscious layer of life". Writing in 1945 Vernadsky notes that "…chemically, the face of our planet, the biosphere, is being sharply changed by man, consciously, and even more so, unconsciously." The pressure of our society on the environment is an ongoing personal concern. Beautiful shapes of plant-life and marine-organisms, which inform my art, are encountered in forests and coral reefs. They are the major carbon-binding organisms on our planet and labelled as carbon-sinks. Fossilised forests and reefs in ancient soil are sequestered carbon in the form of coal, oil and limestone. To satisfy the energy needs of our society, we are releasing this carbon back into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate, clearly changing the current balance of our planet. I am incorporating the issue of climate change in my content. In my most recent work I have focussed on marine environments. The environmental threat to the coral reefs is a personal issue, as I lived in the Caribbean during my teens and spent a lot of time diving and observing marine life. Upon returning in recent years I have personally observed the spectacular decline of the coral reefs. In Alberta, the reefs are close to me as ancient geological formations. In these millions of years old Devonian formations Alberta's oil-wealth is sequestered.

My main medium of expression is print. Scientific observation, which informs my art, is also a platform into investigating the nature of observed reality. Exploration of this reality requires me to expand my mode of expression into a wider field than print, like objects and installations. I have been manufacturing organisms from found materials. I prefer to use the most synthetic materials like plastics, Styrofoam and electronics, because they are the materials of our time, products of the noösphere, and it is our consumption of them that pollutes the biosphere.

I have been bridging the gap between print on paper and installation by incorporating actual objects into my prints or making objects from my prints. I make these print-constructions moveable, to illustrate cyclical processes in nature. Some of these physical additions are interactive, connecting the viewer with my vision, which strives to express that we are all part of the organic whole and that our actions have impact on our natural surroundings.